Is there a native machine code compiler for JavaScript? [closed]

Answer 1

It is theoretically possible, but there will be a lot of runtime support baggage involved (and even a full Javascript compiler or interpreter to support eval).

Are you looking for an actual native code compiler, or are you looking for something that can bundle Javascript code along with a runtime into a single executable binary?

Answer 2

It's definitely doable, although the only way I know how to do it at the moment is a two step process...

1. Compile the javascript to Java using Mozilla Rhino JSC.
2. Compile the resulting java class file to executable using something like GNU's GCJ.

Why would you want to, though? What advantage do you expect to find?

Answer 3

Google V8 engine compiles JavaScript into native machine code. This feature is used in the EncloseJS compiler which I wrote for for node.js and io.js projects.

Answer 4

Adobe AIR's AOT compiler for iOS statically compiles a superset of JavaScript called Actionscript 3.0 down to ABC bytecode, then machine code through LLVM. If you were to write your AS3 code without classes and without type annotation, it would essentially be JavaScript, and then the compiler would happily compile it down to machine code. Sadly this is not open source software, and you don't get access to any DOM (which many people think of when they think of JavaScript) because it's running inside essentially a Flash Player instance.

Answer 5

I'm sure microsoft has a downloadable Jscript ("Microsoft's javascript") compiler

if you have windows: If you write a javascript text file you can compile it by: opening the command prompt using cd to get to the text file directory (if you have windows) type: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\jsc.exe textfile.js

otherwise: download a jscript compiler type the directory of the jscript compiler and then the name of the javascript text file

you can add environment variables if you don't want to type out the whole directory name to the compiler.

this guy explains it better: http://www.phpied.com/make-your-javascript-a-windows-exe/

I personally think this is really cool. I just wish there was more documentation for it.

I'm pretty sure that is what you're looking for, but I'm a bit new.

Answer 6

Please note that all of these solutions are DOMless, so no libraries like angular.js or jquery, only underscore.js/lodash

Following up to Falaina's answer, PyPy does have a dist for JavaScript

Also, Appcelerator Titanium has a js > JavaBit > android

Finally, node.js can use nexe Explained in this other answer